Steelers Still Trying To Put Positive Spin On Super Bowl Win

PITTSBURGH--It’s two days later, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are still trying to put a positive spin on their victory Sunday, which made them Super Bowl champions for the first time since 1979. The game was marred by sloppy play as well as some questionable officiating. The Steelers performance was so bad that many players felt bad afterward.

“I just want to apologize to the city of Pittsburgh for embarrassing them in the Super Bowl,” said quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who registered a 22.6 passer rating. “My performance was unacceptable. The team’s performance, for the most part, was unacceptable. But I think we should try and put a positive spin on this thing. We did win the Super Bowl after all. At least we didn’t play like shit and go home losers, like the Seahawks. Plus we have better weather than they do. So that’s something, too.”

Roethlisberger threw two terrible interceptions, including one that stopped a drive inside the Seahawks ten yard line. Fortunately he was bailed out by an equally bad Matt Hasselbeck interception. He did dive into the end zone for a touchdown late in the first half, though replays showed that he may have come up short.

“I guess the bright side to my performance is that I did get that key touchdown in the second quarter,” said Roethlisberger. “See, I’m a gritty, heady quarterback and if I’m not getting it done with my arm I’m going to find a way to get it done. And that’s just what I did. I found a way to burrow my way into the end zone, or at least close enough that the replay was deemed inconclusive. Inconclusive, baby! Yes!”

The Steelers did make a great play in the fourth quarter when they pitched the ball to receiver Antwaan Randle El and he threw it to a wide open Hines Ward in the end zone.

Ward later called the play “a miracle.”

“It was a miracle that they fell for that. We do that play, like, every single week,” he said. “There was actually a little kid in the stands screaming ‘he’s gonna pass it! he’s gonna pass it!’ Still, the Seahawks fell for it. You do have to give us credit, though, because if we didn’t have the courage to call that play, it never would’ve happened. Also, we executed it perfectly. It was totally flawless. We deserved to win the game, OK? We played better than they did. Jesus, I thought winning the Super Bowl was supposed to be fun.”

The media has been particularly hard on the Steelers since their uninspired victory. Several NFL experts called it one of the worst Super Bowl ever played. Nevertheless, Pittsburgh fans, players, and coaches know that history will remember them as Super Bowl champs.

Said coach Bill Cowher: “Years from now, people won’t be hammering us the way the press is right now. We’ll just be another in a long line of Super Bowl champs. Sure we have a couple guys on our team that didn’t perform up to the best of their abilities, but the Seahawks didn’t exactly cover themselves in glory, either. At least we played the game cleanly and didn’t take any cheap shots. That illegal block Hasselbeck threw on Ike Taylor was reprehensible.”

In the end, Super Bowl XL will probably be remembered most for being Jerome Bettis’s last game. For Bettis, it was the perfect way to end a career – almost.

“It could’ve been prettier but that doesn’t bother me all,” said a smiling Bettis while clutching the Vince Lombardi trophy. “It was actually a memorable game. We had a little bit of everything: Bad calls by the officials, mistakes by both teams, turnovers, inexplicable clock management, a whole shit load of yellow towels, and Aretha Franklin. It’s a Super Bowl that will be remembered years to come as…Super Bowl 40.”